Broadband data and video services have not been widely available to users on mobile platforms such as aircraft, boats, trains, and automobiles. Network systems have traditionally been limited in bandwidth and link capacity, making it prohibitively expensive and/or unacceptably slow to distribute such services to all passengers on a mobile platform. Certain limited services are available to provide video programming to a mobile platform. For example, one service provides either TV broadcast services from available direct broadcast signals (i.e. Echostar® and DirecTV®) or provides a custom TV broadcast signal through dedicated satellite links (i.e. Airshow®).
Limited Internet access also is currently available to a user on a mobile platform. For example, a narrow-bandwidth Internet connection is available via a standard computer telephone modem between a user's computer and the air-ground or ship-shore telephony system. Another service is anticipated to provide world-wide-web content to users on a mobile platform. The web content, however, is pre-stored on a server located on the mobile platform and is updated while the platform is in an inactive mode, for example, when an aircraft is parked at an airport gate or when a ship is docked at a port.
A system described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/639,912, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference, provides bi-directional data services and live television programming to mobile platforms. Data content is transferred via satellite communications link between a ground-based control segment and a mobile RF transceiver system carried on each mobile platform. Each user on each mobile platform is able, using a laptop, personal digital assistant (PDA) or other computing device, to interface with an on-board server. Each user can independently request and obtain, for example, Internet access, company intranet access and live television programming. Real-time programming is supplied, for example, by Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) service providers such as Echostar® and DirecTV®. The content is kept fresh by periodic updates from at least one ground-based server.
As on-board users make various requests for data content and network access, the ground segment must coordinate the requests and deliver the requested content in a timely manner to each platform from which requests have originated. As passengers make use of on-board communication services with increasing frequency, it becomes increasingly desirable to optimize usage of fixed bandwidth so that quality of data transmission to the platforms can be maintained at levels acceptable to onboard users of these services.